Adele abroad: 36 hours in Barcelona

Just the other day I was counting off how many countries I have visited since the beginning of my Exchange. I was including Spain, however although I have been to Spain I can't actually say that I have visited it. Many people have even told me that I wasn't in Spain, I was in Catalonia. As it turns out, in Barcelona people speak Spanish (I'm fairly sure it's the official language) but most people seem to speak Catalan as well. It was very confusing at first, because I originally though I was remembering my grade 9 spanish all wrong. Really, it was just that many of the signs are in Catalan. As far as I am able to tell Catalan is a mix of French and Spanish but with stronger Spanish influences, so at first glance it appears to be spanish. Then you realize you understand nothing (I chose to believe this was because people were speaking Catalan, it could simply be I'm not good at understanding spanish).

I digress, this is meant to be a travel blog so I had better start on what Barcelona was like. We arrived in Barcelona around 7pm and set off immediately for our hostel. It was in a very central location and was different from all other hostels I've been in as it was in an apartment building. We had to buzz up every time and usually we just had to say hello in english and they'd let us through. I once tried to practice my spanish, and replied "hola" in what must have been a good spanish accent because I received a stream of Spanish in return. I panicked and replied in English, and after that just said hello. The hostel itself was not particularly remarkable aside from that, it was quite small though and so it had a rather homey feeling. There were only 5 rooms and I'd estimate they had about 35beds in the whole hostel. I would have probably liked it better except for while I was making my bed the sheets I recieved felt oily. This sent my thoughts into a downwards spiral and when I was very itchy after my first night's sleep I was convinced that they had bedbugs. This was not the case at all, just me overreacting. Luckily I was so tired that I didn't really care and slept very well despite my imagined night time companions.

Since we had been told that in Spain, people don't eat until 10pm or later we set off sightseeing as soon as we were settled in and planned to get some food later. We were however quite hungry and at some quiche in a quite little cafe beside a huge medeival looking cathedral. The whole eating dinner at 10 wasn't the best idea as it turns out, on Easter Monday things start to close around 10pm. We ended up decided to eat healthy and had dessert for dinner. We selected a nice looking restaurant and mustered the courage to ask for a menu in spanish. This was apparently not necessary as our server replied in English. Once we decided we wanted to eat at this restaurant our server started to lead us to the back of the restaurant. As we wanted to eat outside to people-watch we asked our server if we could have a table outside. He jokingly replied (or so I though) "Of course, but it'll more expensive". We got outside, sat down and opened the menu and to our surprise realized he wasn't joking. The entire menu was actually about 1-2 euros more expensive per item. Our jaws dropped and we considered getting up and leaving, then we decided we would stay and chalk up the experience as a good story for our grandchildren. Though the idea still makes me angry we noticed this was a common theme. In Paris every drink on the menu was about 1euro50 more expensive if you drank it at a table versus at the bar. Which is pretty ridiculous considering it was a cafe and the bar had room for about 4 people.

The next we accomplished a whirlwind tour of Barcelona. Highlights included the Sagrada Familia which is very famous church by Gaudi, the Parc Guell (which showcased many of Gaudi's sculptures), la Ramblas, a huge all you can eat buffet (not particularly spanish but still cool), the port of Barcelona, shopping, delicious spanish tortilla (potatoes and eggs) and the Gothic quarter.

There were also a few notable moments of general tourist confusion. S had heard that the Sagrada Familia is supposed to look like it's melting and has been created by termites, we looked at it and couldn't see this all, which was rather disappointing. Then later in the day we discovered that the Sagrada Familia has two sides and we were looking at the less famous/lesser known side. Luckily we had enough time the next day before our flight to Morocco to go and check it out again. We also thought we were on la Ramblas (a huge street with street entertainers etc. and a green park/strip in the middle instead of road) twice but in reality we were on another large major road. Luckily we found it eventually and it was pretty cool.

Sagrada Familia side 1

Originally created by Gaudi, he did not start building it, nor did he finish. In actuality it is still being built, that's why you see so many cranes in the subsequent pictures